Jimmy Lai, who founded the pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily, faces a possible life sentence after being charged under the controversial national security law imposed after Hong Kong’s 2019 protests.
The trial of Hong Kong’s most famous activist publisher who was arrested under China’s crackdown on dissidents will start Monday after being delayed for over a year.
Jimmy Lai, 76, broke into the city’s once freewheeling media world about three decades ago, armed with the belief that delivering information is equal to protecting freedom. Now, his own freedom is at stake as he faces a possible life sentence if convicted under a national security law imposed by Beijing following the 2019 pro-democracy protests.
The landmark case — tied to the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily that Lai founded — is seen by many as a trial for press freedom and a test for judicial independence in the former British colony, which was promised to have its Western-style civil liberties remain intact for 50 years after returning to Chinese rule in 1997.
There’s no grand conspiracy theory. The Apple Daily was right wing tabloid trash owned by right wing trash propped up by the US to harm its geopolitical rival. It’s a centuries old playbook.